@asterdahl. Much of the feedback I had planned concerning Divinity recharge times as well as the Justicar path are already OBE and I concur and am content with some of the changes already made. Now with respect to the Oathkeeper, I'll get the obvious out of the way first and it falls in line with what others have stated wrt the Justicar - Its not as dynamic nor as fast paced as what we've been accustomed to since the class was introduced. Like others have stated, its pretty much a new (and scaled down) version of the original. There is little room for customization. Powers are mostly split between the two trees irrespective of the utility it might have had with the other paragon (i.e. Oath Strike and Vow of Enmity on Devotion). The feats lock you into using specific powers, and the class features (with some exceptions like Divine Justice and Composure) are mostly tied to daily activation and provide somewhat lackluster effects for the expenditure. I'll focus on the at-wills first. To the powers specifically:
Valorous Strike: Pretty straight forward at will. Animation is fine. Hitting power at magnitude 45 is meh for trash but barely adequate for anything else unless an active companion is present. I'm hitting for about a third of what I'm doing now on live and like I said, its fine for keeping trash engaged but clearing them tends to necessitate an encounter use. Plus, it adds NO additional effects. It doesn't reduce damage taken to you, doesn't increase any stats - Nothing. I only found it useful for close in engagements where mobs have closed after a few whacks with Divine Fulmination from distance. Even then it was only to do a quick strike and turtle up until my comp came in or I could hit it with an encounter. Now that's fine with me in a group but it can get dicey if to many mobs rush in while soloing. Please consider giving it some additional effect, like reducing enemy damage resistance by 5% or increasing armor penetration by 5% for 6 sec.
Radiant Strike: This power's change was EXTREMELY disappointing. Before where you would lunge, do decent burst damage and added a small boost to armor pen and damage, now...It moves you foward and smacks the enemy with the almighty power of a roll of toilet paper. It does nothing else. Damage is about a third of what it is on live. It almost never left my bar. Now...I don't have a place for it. Consider adding some other effect to it. Either increasing armor penetration or crit strike by 3% for 6 sec. Even with the additional lunge I don't see how it helps us as it, potentially puts us right in the middle of the action. Fine if I'm tanking. Not as much if I'm responsible for staying alive and patching the team up.
Cure Wounds: Another that was disappointing but understandable when taken into context that all of the heals were reduced in their pre-Mod 16 effectiveness. Its use in the rotation is questionable considering that it heals for so little. I found it easier to swallow a potion or burn a stone of health if I had to wait for enough divinity to use Divine Touch, Shelter or Cleansing touch. The heals are negligible with the most I'm getting is 2.5K for one click (and that's with the 5% from focused healing. As a top off method its fine but I wouldn't slot it solo and if (in group) someone gets into trouble, its best to fire off an encounter or even drop lay on hands if that dire, They at least will come with a barrier.
Divine Fulmination:I must admit that I was very skeptical about this power at first, until I learned to read and figured out it had a range. Now it almost never leaves my bar. Pairing it with Valorous gives a nice ranged and close in combo that helps deal with the lower end trash that I might encounter while soloing and having a ranged encounter keeps me from venturing close in and heal from a comfortable distance. The 140 damage mag is nice but I wouldn't mind if the damage was reduced to say 100 and a added effect was given or it produced at 10 mag burst heal to allies within a small area. Though I'm comfortable with it now as is.
That's it for the at-wills. On to the encounters and the rest. More to follow:
Thanks to @thefabricant for posting the data from his dungeon runs.
This is the particular run of interest: M16 CW - Wizard. Lightbringer 28 - Tank Paladin. Xyrella - Barbarian Tank. Arum - DPS Fighter. Bunny 11- Healer Cleric.
(I’d love to see a run with just the Paladin Tanking, but the relevant bit is still evident.)
(On my phone and image linking doesn’t work through the forum.)
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
So...
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
Post edited by obsidiancran3 on
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
So...
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
Can you please enlighten me how you can by looking at these damage charsts come to the conclution that Justicar does to much damage due to Smite?
Or do you mean that Smite is to much damage compared to the other damage sources from the Justicar?
The Paladin does 93mil damage, the dps fighter does 80mil damage, the Barbie tank does 66 mil damage.
When we look at just the damage for the Paladin we see that 46% of their damage comes from Smite. So of that 93mil, 43mil is from Smite.
If Smite was not over performing (you can aggro whole mobs with just Smite and Oath Strike) the overall distribution of damage for the Paladin would be more even and the Paladin would have lower total damage contribution.
Now this is one data point, and maybe Lightbringer is some freaky god of Paladin dps, but, this likes up with expectations based on cast time, recharge rate, and raw magnitude numbers combined with hours of play testing of the class. (Sure I could have confirmation bias as well.)
But it’s a matter that it’s not just me randomly saying this stuff, the more numbers that come in the more it will be seen.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
The Paladin does 93mil damage, the dps fighter does 80mil damage, the Barbie tank does 66 mil damage.
When we look at just the damage for the Paladin we see that 46% of their damage comes from Smite. So of that 93mil, 43mil is from Smite.
If Smite was not over performing (you can aggro whole mobs with just Smite and Oath Strike) the overall distribution of damage for the Paladin would be more even and the Paladin would have lower total damage contribution.
Now this is one data point, and maybe Lightbringer is some freaky god of Paladin dps, but, this likes up with expectations based on cast time, recharge rate, and raw magnitude numbers combined with hours of play testing of the class. (Sure I could have confirmation bias as well.)
But it’s a matter that it’s not just me randomly saying this stuff, the more numbers that come in the more it will be seen.
You could also ask . . . why is the fighter putting out so little damage? If the fighter put out 110+ and was inline with the CW totals the paladin would look fine.
You could also ask . . . why is the CW so OP? and make a different argument etc.
point being, you can not draw conclusions as to what is over powered and what is not without some clear "target dps" document. you can and have pointed out that there might be a problem but it is not clear as to where the problem lies.
Looking at Justicar, Dreadnought and Barbie dps I would say Dreadnought is underperforming which is also my experience when playing on preview( all 22k + played from 70-80 running masters 1-3 crystals solo and in group).
Justicar should imo have a bit higher dps then Vanguard and Barbie tank as they do not have a pure dps path(it is a tricky balance ofc where the difficult balance have to be that groups do not prefere Justicar above the other tanks).
But a long as Dreadnought is put in par with barbies excisting damage(can not see any reason they should not as both have a tank and dps path now) I find Justicars damage be in reason compared to the dps classes as it is.
Now this run with Justicar had another tank so my guess is that the Justicar got to go full dps which most probably is not the case if in a group with one tank.
If smite damage is lowered and reflective damage is made higher(with increased threatbuilding) that would imo be a not so bad way to go. One side note of that is some mobs regenerate quite fast and with lower burst damage that can in itself be a problem.
The Paladin does 93mil damage, the dps fighter does 80mil damage, the Barbie tank does 66 mil damage.
When we look at just the damage for the Paladin we see that 46% of their damage comes from Smite. So of that 93mil, 43mil is from Smite.
If Smite was not over performing (you can aggro whole mobs with just Smite and Oath Strike) the overall distribution of damage for the Paladin would be more even and the Paladin would have lower total damage contribution.
Now this is one data point, and maybe Lightbringer is some freaky god of Paladin dps, but, this likes up with expectations based on cast time, recharge rate, and raw magnitude numbers combined with hours of play testing of the class. (Sure I could have confirmation bias as well.)
But it’s a matter that it’s not just me randomly saying this stuff, the more numbers that come in the more it will be seen.
Yes, you have confirmation bias @obsidiancran3. And yes, that is an impressive feat and it does appear that you're right - Smite IS a bit out of balance in relation to what it probably should be doing. My remaining questions are: 1) Does or would the data show smite damage being as high with an Oathkeeper in the rotation as a healer, when they have to balance smite usage with healing encounters that come from the same source? If so, or greater then I'd agree with an adjustment down to before it hits live. If not, then : 2) Would a better balance be to readjust the damage penalty on the Justicar back to 30% but boost the additional HP up by 10%? My tongue is firmly in my cheek wrt to the second question though I am genuinely curious about the first one.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
I could get behind this for the Oathkeeper. Both for a balance to smite (which does look out of whack) and for the potential boost to divinity regeneration since Smite usage isn't the only thing I would have to worry about wrt to Divinity.
@ragnarz2 when you look at single target on the same post Paladin is where it should fall, the problem with that is that the Paladin cannot recover Divinity and that needs its ability over a few minute trial to keep using Smite.
While what you see in the boss fight is the Paladin can sustain Divinity and then use Smite a lot.
Look I play Paladin, it’s my main, I definitely don’t want it to suck. I want it to be a great fun class to play, but the point to play testing isn’t just to make the Paladin amazing but to make the whole game better. This is why I’m worried about Smite and the HP boost (for all tanks).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Now this run with Justicar had another tank so my guess is that the Justicar got to go full dps which most probably is not the case if in a group with one tank. Best
That's what I'm curious about though I suspect the damage would still be fairly high. I just don't see oathkeepers using it as much given that smite (even with feats to adjust cost) drains a good chunk of divinity.
@majorcharvenak@marnival WRT the tanking question I can only quote thefabricant "The tank DPS is not from the perspective of a tank class DPSing, but a tank playing as a tank, so it is not representative of a tank trying to DPS."
But I do find it somewhat confusing as to why the Barbarian was playing Tank as well.
(His whole post is on the last page of General Feedback thread for me.)
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I just don't see oathkeepers using it as much given that smite (even with feats to adjust cost) drains a good chunk of divinity.
To be honest I don't see Oathkeeper using it much in a dungeon either as Divinity is too precious to waste on damage if you are there to heal. For Oathkeeper it is absolutely a "we are over geared and dead things don't damage us" or solo play power.
With Justicar you can (currently) slot the ability to give Smite aggro claiming and between its damage and Oath strike pretty much maintain aggro, as long as people let you get the first hit in. In Icespire (Tales) I was able to hold aggro of the boss and a pack of trolls with just Smite (no passive), Vow and Oath Strike (in the run before I did the video).
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
@ragnarz2 when you look at single target on the same post Paladin is where it should fall, the problem with that is that the Paladin cannot recover Divinity and that needs its ability over a few minute trial to keep using Smite.
While what you see in the boss fight is the Paladin can sustain Divinity and then use Smite a lot.
Look I play Paladin, it’s my main, I definitely don’t want it to suck. I want it to be a great fun class to play, but the point to play testing isn’t just to make the Paladin amazing but to make the whole game better. This is why I’m worried about Smite and the HP boost (for all tanks).
Confirmation bias confirmed. I look at those numbers and see the dps fighter as having an issue; the barbie tank as needing scrutiny. If you can imagine a curve and where each class belongs on that curve then the issues are clear to me at least. Regardless, sample size is too small.
When you strip away all the noise the real problem is that Cryptic is flailing around trying to achieve the mystical balance and do not really have a firm grasp. All I see is trial and error.
Confirmation bias confirmed. I look at those numbers and see the dps fighter as having an issue; the barbie tank as needing scrutiny. If you can imagine a curve and where each class belongs on that curve then the issues are clear to me at least. Regardless, sample size is too small.
When you strip away all the noise the real problem is that Cryptic is flailing around trying to achieve the mystical balance and do not really have a firm grasp. All I see is trial and error.
Sure, as long as you ignore that 46% of the Paladin's damage came from Smite and that the Tank Paladin is middling to bad when it cannot access Divinity reliably as seen in the single target trials done on dummies.
Or the fact that "everyone" is running Smite to clear content in solo play.
Sure there is no problem with Smite, its fantastic and everything is rosy.
Try playing without Smite and see how things are going compared to how they go with Smite.
See if there are any problems that might show up when you remove the power that is totally outside the curve of the game experience for the class.
There are 2 "must run" powers now: Composure (because Divinity Recovery is so bad that any boost is a good boost) and Smite (because it just kills things). If the class depends on those 2 things to function the things they are tied to are not working well. Smite's damage is outside what it should be and Divinity recovery is terrible. Both need to be fixed.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Or the fact that "everyone" is running Smite to clear content in solo play.
Sure there is no problem with Smite, its fantastic and everything is rosy.
Try playing without Smite and see how things are going compared to how they go with Smite.
There are 2 "must run" powers now: Composure (because Divinity Recovery is so bad that any boost is a good boost) and Smite (because it just kills things). If the class depends on those 2 things to function the things they are tied to are not working well. Smite's damage is outside what it should be and Divinity recovery is terrible. Both need to be fixed.
I tried (at least on the Oathkeeper) and NOTHING comes even remotely close short of popping Divine Judgement/Charge. You're right though. Placing two abilities as must-haves doesn't bode well for the class, but like I also said, what other choice is there in the current selection. At least on Justicar, the paragon specific powers have some sort of damage but the healers have no other option. If there is a fix, I wouldn't be too upset reducing it by 300 over all and giving Relentless Avenger a 100 magnitude boost. Any more than that and I'll probably just slot sacred weapon in its place while soloing to reduce my overall divinity cost. It just wouldn't be worth it to me as it hits only slightly harder than Bane,
In live the paladin takes more damage than other classes without templars wrath, If we are not going to be allowed to do damage then we should have better mitigation with out templars wrath. The main problem with a lot of games is they use the magical taunt ability to draw agro. On live I barely use divine call to hold agro because I focused on more dps. Why do I as a paladin have to level up as a healer? I noticed that devotion paladins seem to kill faster than my protection paladin unless I draw in 3 packs of mobs and use AOE. This being on Live. We do not have a DPS tree. The only class that lacks this feature on mod 16. Why would it not be feasible for paladins to have decent DPS to hold agro instead of a taunt? I think its more fun to try and gain agro without a taunt. Players would have to stay back for a few seconds to let the tank build agro. Not this messy slug fest we have now where anyone can attack before the tank even gets to the scene. In addition it would be more entertaining to see classes have to balance their own threat meter. You do too much dps and your dead, better slow down your dps or use an agro dump mechanic that perhaps drops agro and reduces your dps for 20 seconds. This would remove the mindless slugfest and lack of skill a lot of players have.
There is something strange about the threat mechanics in this game. I like to pull mobs and be able to move them. I noticed that if players are beating down on a mob I can't move it even if I dump 3 taunts on the mobs or boss. I still have agro but the boss ignores my position.
I hate leveling tanks in games where they can't kill things solo its boring. The only people that will be playing paladins are the player base that already have lv 70 end game paladins. Eventually players will quit and all that will be left are a handful of paladins. There will be a void left where everyone is looking for paladins but there are none left in the game.
A cool feature I would like to see is damage shields (you hit me you get hurt) and the ability to soak damage and return a large portion back in bursts after a build up of some meter. Get out of the mentality that tanks can't do damage. This is spawned by games that have to balance PVP, atm your game lacks any incentive for pvp play. Current paladins are awful at pvp and With your mod 16 plans will probably be even worse.
A lot of your scaling issues can probably be handles by having gear give more stats like str wis int etc instead of these extra stats like def armor pen etc. By adding more function to stats like str for instance. Str boost damage, block deflect. Dex boost dodge, accuracy crit resistance and crit etc.
On another game I built a tank with high strength to mitigate physical damage and high wisdom to be resistant to elemental damage I did not hp stack like other tanks. It was more rewarding to be able to go outside the box and do things my way and be a better tank than the rest of the player base. You say your trying to make it so that there is less cookie cutter builds well I think your failing at this 100%.
When wow came out and we had no control of stats and stats really did not have a big impact on game play. I was disappointed that I could not flesh out my characters to my play style. I like that fact that you have to use some brains to design a good character and those that don't think it through will gimp themselves. Hopefully with enough options you won't have cookie cutter builds but to me currently not enough options in feat choices on mod 16.
I was hoping that the addition of the threat meter you were going in the direction mentioned above but it seems like all of this change is just for convenience of scaling for the programmers. Why does it matter who does more dps. The score board just clouds things for you. The main point is did you do your job well in the role that you play? I bet if you took the current score board and combined all the scores into a final analysis of who provided the most benefit to the team tanks will always fall to the bottom. Even though their role and the healers are the keystone that holds the team together. You can say well you took the most damage but that metric is false. I've seen dps suck so bad that they take more damage than the tank, they can't stay out of the red.
The direction your taking could lead to ending solo play. If a tank can't stay alive without healers, if dps die to mobs without a tank etc, then players will have to form parties to level. This is how older MMO's used to work. I like the fact that you could do a lot of content solo, but if I'm going to need a full party to play its going to be boring, LFG to do quest is going to kill this game. I understand what your doing but there is a reason that this game and many other games have moved away from this formula. Don't go retro and think you can do it better, MMOs have evolved the way they are because it's what works. Just as free to play has taken over most MMO's and become pay to win. What killed WOW for me was the complete rework of the class every expansion and having to throw away all my hard earned gear for green gear that was better than my end game gear. I would have been content with the level cap raise and a few new abilities to use. Familiarity with some new choices will always be more comfortable than a complete overhaul.
Remember if you kill this game who's going to be in the bread line?
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
So...
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
So, if what these charts are showing is that Justicar's Smite is overpowered, then how op is a Wizard if he still manages to top damage dealing versus other dps classes and vs a broken Justicar? Suggesting nerfs and coming up with evidence to support your suggestions is ok and all but where are the balance suggestions? If the devs outright reduce the magnitude of Justicars abilities will they also provide meaningful Feats and Passives in time for release?
Sorry folks but if Im gonna get a broken class with M16 release anyway, Id rather have a broken op class than a broken nerfed to the ground class. If the devs are unable to balance now /seems they are/ and release date is approaching, leave the class mess as it is, at least they are playable. Focus on fixing enchantments, artifacts, pets and scaling. Because those are so broken some of them are game breaking. Castle Never bridge demons for example still hit players for 200 000 - 300 000 on every attack and that dungeon is listed at 10 000 IL if i recall.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
So, if what these charts are showing is that Justicar's Smite is overpowered, then how op is a Wizard if he still manages to top damage dealing versus other dps classes and vs a broken Justicar? Suggesting nerfs and coming up with evidence to support your suggestions is ok and all but where are the balance suggestions? If the devs outright reduce the magnitude of Justicars abilities will they also provide meaningful Feats and Passives in time for release?
Sorry folks but if Im gonna get a broken class with M16 release anyway, Id rather have a broken op class than a broken nerfed to the ground class. If the devs are unable to balance now /seems they are/ and release date is approaching, leave the class mess as it is, at least they are playable. Focus on fixing enchantments, artifacts, pets and scaling. Because those are so broken some of them are game breaking. Castle Never bridge demons for example still hit players for 200 000 - 300 000 on every attack and that dungeon is listed at 10 000 IL if i recall.
Is this the feedback thread for CWs? What about for unexpected difficulty and deaths?
Pretty sure its the feedback thread for Paladins. So that's what I'm here discussing.
We already know that the devs are aware of the problems with CN and similar, the fact they were not fixed this week doesn't mean they are not trying to fix them.
I'm equally confident that the devs have looked at the data I shared along with the rest of the data that was shared in the same post. (In which the CW in question wasn't always so clearly ahead of the other DPS.)
I want the Paladin to work, not be broken and need to be fixed endlessly in a series of nerfs and corrections and nerfs over the next 2 modules or more. (I have had SW for that experience enough already.)
Part of that is waiting for Asterdahl to deliver the changes he has promised to the passives and feats.
Part of that is identifying sources of problems for the class that exist outside passives and feats.
If the class is performing "as expected" based on the existence of 1 power, that is a problem (been through that with OP already as well). We want the class to perform well with as many power combinations being viable as possible. That's not going to happen when every problem in the game can be solved by smiting it.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
0
micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
So, if what these charts are showing is that Justicar's Smite is overpowered, then how op is a Wizard if he still manages to top damage dealing versus other dps classes and vs a broken Justicar? Suggesting nerfs and coming up with evidence to support your suggestions is ok and all but where are the balance suggestions?
Someone found an issue, brought evidence, analyzed it, made a coherent post. What else do you want? A full solution on every issue reported? With all the respect, this is what the devs are for.
Sorry folks but if Im gonna get a broken class with M16 release anyway, Id rather have a broken op class than a broken nerfed to the ground class. If the devs are unable to balance now /seems they are/ and release date is approaching, leave the class mess as it is, at least they are playable.
If left as is, it will be fixed two weeks after going live and we will remain with a nerfed OP until the next time class balance will be touched, in 2-10 mods. Thanks, but no thanks.
If there is an issue better it get fixed properly, and not hidden because some want to rely on broken 'features' for a class to semi work.
Focus on fixing enchantments, artifacts, pets and scaling. Because those are so broken some of them are game breaking. Castle Never bridge demons for example still hit players for 200 000 - 300 000 on every attack and that dungeon is listed at 10 000 IL if i recall.
I am slowly learning how to play the new Paladin having started a new one, I find that is the best way for me, to go back to start again. So far I'm doing ok but I would like to suggest a smaller cool down on encounter power Sacred Weapon, that would make it a little easier for me to survive.
Thanks to @thefabricant for posting the data from his dungeon runs.
This is the particular run of interest:
M16 CW - Wizard.
Lightbringer 28 - Tank Paladin.
Xyrella - Barbarian Tank.
Arum - DPS Fighter.
Bunny 11- Healer Cleric.
(I’d love to see a run with just the Paladin Tanking, but the relevant bit is still evident.)
The barb is playing dps in this run, you can download the entire logs and look at the powers that were used. Sharp accidentially labeled it wrong. Xyrella was also playing on a sub-optimal notebook as far as I know, if you want to have a more representative dps-number then you should look at Hector from another run.
And to be precise, if the barb in this run had been tank-specced, then I would have performed worse on my paladin. I need to get hit in order to deal damage, another tank would take at least some dmg away from me.
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
Yes, the dps of a tank built paladin against a dummy is not representative at all because of many reasons, we only added it to have a complete dummy-test. We also stated that it is not represantative.
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
Regarding Smite: It is not that simple, even if you scrap Smite entirely from the log, paladin would still deal more enc-dps than tank-barb or tank-fighter in these particular logs. Also, Smite is not the real the issue, it's Dvinity powers in general, for aoe I was using Bane very effectively. You can download the logs for all runs as zip-file if you want to have a closer look. You have to take into account, that these are only 4 runs, a statistically insignificant number, however the runs indicate that tank paladin is, compared to tank-barb and tank-fighter, overperforming. It also looks like paladin is doing more dmg than dps-fighter, actually I ran this dungeon a lot with dps-fighters and I was roughly doing the same dps/dmg as them every time.
3
gormenghast1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 88Arc User
edited March 2019
Hi all,
it always takes a bit to keep up to date with the evolution of this thread, but it's always nice to see a productive discussion regarding the goal of having a viable class to play once mod 16 hits live.
I find myself agreeing with the evident focus that Justicars put on the use of Smite, but it seems to me that addressing the magnitude of the power is the wrong way to balance things out. First and foremost, there will never be a perfect balance among the power used by any class, so we'll always see charts showing one power getting the biggest slice of the pie, with the others following behind. This is not bad per se and it's not the main point of concern for the viability of a class, even if it means that a specific power will be preferred when in need of an higher DPS output.
The most dear elements to a specific class players are the viability of their character in the different aspects of the game, being it solo play or grouped content, and a specific identity for their class. Noone feels good saying "I main a tank" as saying "my main is a Fighter", because uniqueness is what makes the choice to play a specific class relevant.
What I find lacking in the actual Paladin's state of developement are viable alternatives to the use of Divinity. This lead to invest all the available Divinity on a specific power, being it situationally Smite or Templar's Wrath. A valid Tab mechanic for the class would allow Paladins to invest this resource in another way other than in their encounters, limiting automatically the weight of their DPS percentage.
I appreciate the idea of a Divinity draining tab mechanic as it is for Divine Pallisade at the moment, but I can't still find reasons to use it either in solo content or in groups. In its place, a valid alternative would be something on these baselines:
- Charging: holding tab charges the mechanic at the cost of 100 divinity per second, as per the updated Divine Pallisade.
- Incremental effect and duration: every second passed charging the mechanic would increase its bonus by a fixed amount. With the removal of recovery and the need to use Divinity for encounters, a duration of 2s per tick would make it worthwile.
- Effectiveness: investing Divinity in the class mechanic should make it worthwile over keeping it just to fuel encounters. If the effect would be deemed too insignificant, Justicar players would keep using divinity uniquely for encounters.
- (optional) Full Charge Reward: fueling the mechanic for 10 full seconds should be truly rewarding. Being target of CCs and damaging hits without using the shield for all this time is a noticeable challenge and it should seen as a success in personal skill to reach it in combat situations.
- (optional) Party effect: the mechanic would affect friendly characters/companions/allies in the same range of the Paladin's Aura. Party buffing is a matter of class balance; if this would make the Paladin preferable over the other two tank classes, it would better be avoided.
The effect could really be any thinkable of: bonus to defence, bonus to damage, bonus to attack speed, CD lowering, CC resistance/immunity, increase of threat bonus etc. Some are an echo of the old Divine Call+Justice capstone feat, some could be new to the Paladin. I don't mind proposing any personal preference; it's just a matter of granting the Justicar a real class mechanic that could give it uniqueness and a viable alternative in Divinity consumption, automatically limiting encounter spam as the only way to be relevant in solo or grouped content.
Thanks to @thefabricant for posting the data from his dungeon runs.
This is the particular run of interest:
M16 CW - Wizard.
Lightbringer 28 - Tank Paladin.
Xyrella - Barbarian Tank.
Arum - DPS Fighter.
Bunny 11- Healer Cleric.
(I’d love to see a run with just the Paladin Tanking, but the relevant bit is still evident.)
The barb is playing dps in this run, you can download the entire logs and look at the powers that were used. Sharp accidentially labeled it wrong. Xyrella was also playing on a sub-optimal notebook as far as I know, if you want to have a more representative dps-number then you should look at Hector from another run.
And to be precise, if the barb in this run had been tank-specced, then I would have performed worse on my paladin. I need to get hit in order to deal damage, another tank would take at least some dmg away from me.
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
Yes, the dps of a tank built paladin against a dummy is not representative at all because of many reasons, we only added it to have a complete dummy-test. We also stated that it is not represantative.
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
Regarding Smite: It is not that simple, even if you scrap Smite entirely from the log, paladin would still deal more enc-dps than tank-barb or tank-fighter in these particular logs. Also, Smite is not the real the issue, it's Dvinity powers in general, for aoe I was using Bane very effectively. You can download the logs for all runs as zip-file if you want to have a closer look. You have to take into account, that these are only 4 runs, a statistically insignificant number, however the runs indicate that tank paladin is, compared to tank-barb and tank-fighter, overperforming. It also looks like paladin is doing more dmg than dps-fighter, actually I ran this dungeon a lot with dps-fighters and I was roughly doing the same dps/dmg as them every time.
Pal Justicar is doing more then dreadnought and considering dreadnought is far behind barbi fighter set up I see that being more of a dreadnought doing to little damage.
That Justicar do more damage then Vanguard barbie tank is something I have a hard time seeing not being the case as Justicar is the only dps Pal has. However it is not without a problem due to tanks overall need to be equal in being wanted in groups I think utitility is the fix for this however it is done, leaving Justice at same dps as other tanks that has access to dps path is equally wrong.
Dreadnought need a damage boost or barbie dps toned down these 2 path should be exactly the same in damage output.
Well now, since the quote wars have begun and people are starting to dissect posts sentence by sentence this thread is pretty much going down the drain far as I'm concerned. Smite, being slotted on a Justicar only has merit vs a Boss to keep aggro. Nerf it to 500 mag for all I care since Im not using it at all during solo play /Bane , Binding Oath , Sacred/Relentless/.
Smite matters not, you are focusing on the wrong things. We have a tank class practically Featless and without Passives. I can literally play with nearly the same efficiency without having picked any Feats! Is that OK? Is that on the charts?
Anyway, the devs will do whatever they think they should do, we're on page 23 and Tab is still bad despite all the feedback. M16 will launch with op classes and nerfed classes as usual. If the Justicar happens to be on nerfed side at least I have a Sentinel to fall back to.
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Well now, since the quote wars have begun and people are starting to dissect posts sentence by sentence this thread is pretty much going down the drain far as I'm concerned. Smite, being slotted on a Justicar only has merit vs a Boss to keep aggro. Nerf it to 500 mag for all I care since Im not using it at all during solo play /Bane , Binding Oath , Sacred/Relentless/.
Smite matters not, you are focusing on the wrong things. We have a tank class practically Featless and without Passives. I can literally play with nearly the same efficiency without having picked any Feats! Is that OK? Is that on the charts?
Anyway, the devs will do whatever they think they should do, we're on page 23 and Tab is still bad despite all the feedback. M16 will launch with op classes and nerfed classes as usual. If the Justicar happens to be on nerfed side at least I have a Sentinel to fall back to.
Ummm...both paragons are wanting in the feats and passives department. Its not just the Justicar.
Well now, since the quote wars have begun and people are starting to dissect posts sentence by sentence this thread is pretty much going down the drain far as I'm concerned. Smite, being slotted on a Justicar only has merit vs a Boss to keep aggro. Nerf it to 500 mag for all I care since Im not using it at all during solo play /Bane , Binding Oath , Sacred/Relentless/.
Smite matters not, you are focusing on the wrong things. We have a tank class practically Featless and without Passives. I can literally play with nearly the same efficiency without having picked any Feats! Is that OK? Is that on the charts?
Anyway, the devs will do whatever they think they should do, we're on page 23 and Tab is still bad despite all the feedback. M16 will launch with op classes and nerfed classes as usual. If the Justicar happens to be on nerfed side at least I have a Sentinel to fall back to.
Ummm...both paragons are wanting in the feats and passives department. Its not just the Justicar.
Yet you guys dont seem much bothered by that. What kind of Paladin main players are you? You care more about Smite being the single source of Paladin dps.. well of course it is, Its a 1200 mag ability - what do you expect? You know why Paladin abilities have high magnitudes? Its simple and the devs know it well /thats why they gave them to us/, we have high mags because our abilities have almost no added effects and no interaction with Feats/Passives. For example Barbarian Punishing Charge works just like Relentless Avenger, only its 700 mag instead of 800 cause it has added Stun effect. Check Justicar abilities, we have almost no added effects aside from the tanking powers. Our only cc is a lengthy charge aoe ability which even after the buff is useless and nobody will slot it at high levels. Sacred Weapon, even after the buff its too weak to slot, it recharges in 28 seconds, Id rather slot Relentless and have it hit twice while Sacred is still on cooldown. And Relentless, while being the obvious choice for a slot power has absolutely zero interaction with Feats or Passives. Our best encounters, the onces that are most useful, have almost no interaction with Feats and Passives! That is our problem, not Smite.
Also @asterdahl I gotta say thank you, Justicars gain Divinity via blocking, enemies under cc can not attack the tank so no blocking = no Divinity. Essentially even if you give Justicars the best cc in the game we wont use it cause its counterproductive to our new class mechanic... Sarcasm off. Burning light, the single best pve encounter power of the live Paladin is as good as deleted. Do you really think your present dev team has the capacity to make changes of this caliber to the core game ? I dont, I dont trust you guys. You seem uncertain of what you're doing. If you manage to pull off a good m16 release with actually balanced classes Id be amazed as hell and I'll apologize publicly.
PS: Also do keep in mind both the Barbi tank and the Fighter tank can keep attacking while blocking. The Sentinel actually being capable of using his full encounter arsenal while Unstoppable auto blocks all incoming attacks, put an Eclipse in his armor and behold. Out of the 3 tanks, Justicar is the only one depending on blocking not only for damage negation but for main resource recovery! Dont compare us more than needed, we are in fact different.
Post edited by emilemo on
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
@emilemo Asterdahl has already indicated that he is working on our feats and passives and he said that those changes wouldn’t be in last week’s patch.
So I focussed on other things this patch, specifically the fact that I went from slow but reliable in clearing content to waltzing through it without a care mostly.
My feedback remains: I think 40% more HP is bad for game balance (the 1 million HP tank is inevitable), instead the Shield’s “hp” should be increased and if necessary the rate of stamina loss adjusted.
Now that we only have a 10% debuff, Smite (1200 magnitude) over performs. Yes I can have multiple 1k Magnitude powers slotted on a Sentinel, they all have 10s plus cool down, you can cast Smite faster than that, especially if you have something to accelerate Divinity recovery.
Divinity recovery is bad. Really bad once you have a go with a DC and see how smoothly they can recover Divinity it’s even more painful to struggle with our Divinity (similarly for the Warlock heal spec).
Divine Pallisade is horrible. It’s basically a tank only effect that pretends to be a party effect that isn’t useable because it costs 2 critical resources for a marginal effect. Extensive suggestions made.
Aggro management seems to be fine, but problems exist with Vow of Enmity’s cool down. Given the power’s small damage it can be cast faster and that would smooth out aggro management.
I haven’t had a chance to test our heals in party content so have no comment.
Obsidian Moonlight - Paladin Obsidian Oath - Warlock A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Well now, since the quote wars have begun and people are starting to dissect posts sentence by sentence this thread is pretty much going down the drain far as I'm concerned. Smite, being slotted on a Justicar only has merit vs a Boss to keep aggro. Nerf it to 500 mag for all I care since Im not using it at all during solo play /Bane , Binding Oath , Sacred/Relentless/.
Smite matters not, you are focusing on the wrong things. We have a tank class practically Featless and without Passives. I can literally play with nearly the same efficiency without having picked any Feats! Is that OK? Is that on the charts?
Anyway, the devs will do whatever they think they should do, we're on page 23 and Tab is still bad despite all the feedback. M16 will launch with op classes and nerfed classes as usual. If the Justicar happens to be on nerfed side at least I have a Sentinel to fall back to.
Ummm...both paragons are wanting in the feats and passives department. Its not just the Justicar.
Yet you guys dont seem much bothered by that. What kind of Paladin main players are you? You care more about Smite being the single source of Paladin dps.. well of course it is, Its a 1200 mag ability - what do you expect? You know why Paladin abilities have high magnitudes? Its simple and the devs know it well /thats why they gave them to us/, we have high mags because our abilities have almost no added effects and no interaction with Feats/Passives. For example Barbarian Punishing Charge works just like Relentless Avenger, only its 700 mag instead of 800 cause it has added Stun effect. Check Justicar abilities, we have almost no added effects aside from the tanking powers. Our only cc is a lengthy charge aoe ability which even after the buff is useless and nobody will slot it at high levels. Sacred Weapon, even after the buff its too weak to slot, it recharges in 28 seconds, Id rather slot Relentless and have it hit twice while Sacred is still on cooldown. And Relentless, while being the obvious choice for a slot power has absolutely zero interaction with Feats or Passives. Our best encounters, the onces that are most useful, have almost no interaction with Feats and Passives! That is our problem, not Smite.
Also @asterdahl I gotta say thank you, Justicars gain Divinity via blocking, enemies under cc can not attack the tank so no blocking = no Divinity. Essentially even if you give Justicars the best cc in the game we wont use it cause its counterproductive to our new class mechanic... Sarcasm off. Burning light, the single best pve encounter power of the live Paladin is as good as deleted. Do you really think your present dev team has the capacity to make changes of this caliber to the core game ? I dont, I dont trust you guys. You seem uncertain of what you're doing. If you manage to pull off a good m16 release with actually balanced classes Id be amazed as hell and I'll apologize publicly.
PS: Also do keep in mind both the Barbi tank and the Fighter tank can keep attacking while blocking. The Sentinel actually being capable of using his full encounter arsenal while Unstoppable auto blocks all incoming attacks, put an Eclipse in his armor and behold. Out of the 3 tanks, Justicar is the only one depending on blocking not only for damage negation but for main resource recovery! Dont compare us more than needed, we are in fact different.
Summon it up pretty good imo.
Binding, absolution, smite should as it is now be the best combo but that leaves out the threat building completely beside pure dps.
As long as you get hit binding is imho a much better choise then relentless(if the party isent hopeless forcing you to charge to stay ahead). I would even agree to lower Smite for the Justicar(not Oathkeeper) if you would add a bit of more damage when hit on binding oath and threat on all reflective damage(wtith built in feats and class feats for it).
As mentioned above we funcion a bit different from the other tanks and working on this "taking damage doing damage with increased threat" track I can see a working solution commming into play.
Ive had a few runs where I tried to slot healing /divine touch/ along with tanking powers. It doesnt work. If I have 2 Divinity spenders its just too much. Vow and Templars are both needed for aggro and there goes the Divnity. The 3rd encounter needs to be either BO for some dps/cc immunity/stamina gain or Absolution for added dmg resistance and more D gain.. This brings me again to the whole premise of m16, which correct me if Im wrong should be less abilities equals more meaningful abilities overall. Yet thats not the case is it. The choice of what to slot and what not is quite clear.
Healing as Oathkeeper I havent tried in grp content
Row, row, row your boat, Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
Comments
Valorous Strike: Pretty straight forward at will. Animation is fine. Hitting power at magnitude 45 is meh for trash but barely adequate for anything else unless an active companion is present. I'm hitting for about a third of what I'm doing now on live and like I said, its fine for keeping trash engaged but clearing them tends to necessitate an encounter use. Plus, it adds NO additional effects. It doesn't reduce damage taken to you, doesn't increase any stats - Nothing. I only found it useful for close in engagements where mobs have closed after a few whacks with Divine Fulmination from distance. Even then it was only to do a quick strike and turtle up until my comp came in or I could hit it with an encounter. Now that's fine with me in a group but it can get dicey if to many mobs rush in while soloing. Please consider giving it some additional effect, like reducing enemy damage resistance by 5% or increasing armor penetration by 5% for 6 sec.
Radiant Strike: This power's change was EXTREMELY disappointing. Before where you would lunge, do decent burst damage and added a small boost to armor pen and damage, now...It moves you foward and smacks the enemy with the almighty power of a roll of toilet paper. It does nothing else. Damage is about a third of what it is on live. It almost never left my bar. Now...I don't have a place for it. Consider adding some other effect to it. Either increasing armor penetration or crit strike by 3% for 6 sec. Even with the additional lunge I don't see how it helps us as it, potentially puts us right in the middle of the action. Fine if I'm tanking. Not as much if I'm responsible for staying alive and patching the team up.
Cure Wounds: Another that was disappointing but understandable when taken into context that all of the heals were reduced in their pre-Mod 16 effectiveness. Its use in the rotation is questionable considering that it heals for so little. I found it easier to swallow a potion or burn a stone of health if I had to wait for enough divinity to use Divine Touch, Shelter or Cleansing touch. The heals are negligible with the most I'm getting is 2.5K for one click (and that's with the 5% from focused healing. As a top off method its fine but I wouldn't slot it solo and if (in group) someone gets into trouble, its best to fire off an encounter or even drop lay on hands if that dire, They at least will come with a barrier.
Divine Fulmination:I must admit that I was very skeptical about this power at first, until I learned to read and figured out it had a range. Now it almost never leaves my bar. Pairing it with Valorous gives a nice ranged and close in combo that helps deal with the lower end trash that I might encounter while soloing and having a ranged encounter keeps me from venturing close in and heal from a comfortable distance. The 140 damage mag is nice but I wouldn't mind if the damage was reduced to say 100 and a added effect was given or it produced at 10 mag burst heal to allies within a small area. Though I'm comfortable with it now as is.
That's it for the at-wills. On to the encounters and the rest. More to follow:
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
Paladin has less basic stats than other classes. E.G. CW's summary of basic stats is 74 and OP's is 72.
This is the particular run of interest:
M16 CW - Wizard.
Lightbringer 28 - Tank Paladin.
Xyrella - Barbarian Tank.
Arum - DPS Fighter.
Bunny 11- Healer Cleric.
(I’d love to see a run with just the Paladin Tanking, but the relevant bit is still evident.)
(On my phone and image linking doesn’t work through the forum.)
Total Run Comparison:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/326032679029964800/559308530096537624/unknown.png
The Paladin’s Tables for the final boss:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/326032679029964800/559145079084679168/unknown.png
It’s pretty clear that Smite is a problem looking at this.
The problem is more complicated when we look at the solo dps table (of hitting a dummy) where the Paladin is sitting about where it should. The situation of course being that without the damage from attacks coming in to refresh Divinity Smite gets reduced to a slow recharge high damage attack, which is fine, but that isn’t the “in the world” play that needs to be balanced that the Dungeon tables are more reflective of.
So...
There are 2 angles to this; 1 Smite is hitting too hard for how often it refreshes and Divinity recovery is too slow to be effective.
For those worried about Oathkeeper I would suggest that better Divinity recovery would overall boost that spec and allow it to keep dps for solo play, especially if the relevant feat is kept and even boosted slightly in impact. For example if Smite does 2/3 the damage it does now but you can cast it 1/3 more often the total damage you get is (about) the same. That feat just remains off the Justicar tree and it sustains a net reduction in dps from Smite.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Or do you mean that Smite is to much damage compared to the other damage sources from the Justicar?
Best
The Paladin does 93mil damage, the dps fighter does 80mil damage, the Barbie tank does 66 mil damage.
When we look at just the damage for the Paladin we see that 46% of their damage comes from Smite. So of that 93mil, 43mil is from Smite.
If Smite was not over performing (you can aggro whole mobs with just Smite and Oath Strike) the overall distribution of damage for the Paladin would be more even and the Paladin would have lower total damage contribution.
Now this is one data point, and maybe Lightbringer is some freaky god of Paladin dps, but, this likes up with expectations based on cast time, recharge rate, and raw magnitude numbers combined with hours of play testing of the class. (Sure I could have confirmation bias as well.)
But it’s a matter that it’s not just me randomly saying this stuff, the more numbers that come in the more it will be seen.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
You could also ask . . . why is the CW so OP? and make a different argument etc.
point being, you can not draw conclusions as to what is over powered and what is not without some clear "target dps" document. you can and have pointed out that there might be a problem but it is not clear as to where the problem lies.
Looking at Justicar, Dreadnought and Barbie dps I would say Dreadnought is underperforming which is also my experience when playing on preview( all 22k + played from 70-80 running masters 1-3 crystals solo and in group).
Justicar should imo have a bit higher dps then Vanguard and Barbie tank as they do not have a pure dps path(it is a tricky balance ofc where the difficult balance have to be that groups do not prefere Justicar above the other tanks).
But a long as Dreadnought is put in par with barbies excisting damage(can not see any reason they should not as both have a tank and dps path now) I find Justicars damage be in reason compared to the dps classes as it is.
Now this run with Justicar had another tank so my guess is that the Justicar got to go full dps which most probably is not the case if in a group with one tank.
If smite damage is lowered and reflective damage is made higher(with increased threatbuilding) that would imo be a not so bad way to go. One side note of that is some mobs regenerate quite fast and with lower burst damage that can in itself be a problem.
Best
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
While what you see in the boss fight is the Paladin can sustain Divinity and then use Smite a lot.
Look I play Paladin, it’s my main, I definitely don’t want it to suck. I want it to be a great fun class to play, but the point to play testing isn’t just to make the Paladin amazing but to make the whole game better. This is why I’m worried about Smite and the HP boost (for all tanks).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
WRT the tanking question I can only quote thefabricant "The tank DPS is not from the perspective of a tank class DPSing, but a tank playing as a tank, so it is not representative of a tank trying to DPS."
But I do find it somewhat confusing as to why the Barbarian was playing Tank as well.
(His whole post is on the last page of General Feedback thread for me.)
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
With Justicar you can (currently) slot the ability to give Smite aggro claiming and between its damage and Oath strike pretty much maintain aggro, as long as people let you get the first hit in. In Icespire (Tales) I was able to hold aggro of the boss and a pack of trolls with just Smite (no passive), Vow and Oath Strike (in the run before I did the video).
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
When you strip away all the noise the real problem is that Cryptic is flailing around trying to achieve the mystical balance and do not really have a firm grasp. All I see is trial and error.
Or the fact that "everyone" is running Smite to clear content in solo play.
Sure there is no problem with Smite, its fantastic and everything is rosy.
Try playing without Smite and see how things are going compared to how they go with Smite.
See if there are any problems that might show up when you remove the power that is totally outside the curve of the game experience for the class.
There are 2 "must run" powers now: Composure (because Divinity Recovery is so bad that any boost is a good boost) and Smite (because it just kills things). If the class depends on those 2 things to function the things they are tied to are not working well. Smite's damage is outside what it should be and Divinity recovery is terrible. Both need to be fixed.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
There is something strange about the threat mechanics in this game. I like to pull mobs and be able to move them. I noticed that if players are beating down on a mob I can't move it even if I dump 3 taunts on the mobs or boss. I still have agro but the boss ignores my position.
I hate leveling tanks in games where they can't kill things solo its boring. The only people that will be playing paladins are the player base that already have lv 70 end game paladins. Eventually players will quit and all that will be left are a handful of paladins. There will be a void left where everyone is looking for paladins but there are none left in the game.
A cool feature I would like to see is damage shields (you hit me you get hurt) and the ability to soak damage and return a large portion back in bursts after a build up of some meter. Get out of the mentality that tanks can't do damage. This is spawned by games that have to balance PVP, atm your game lacks any incentive for pvp play. Current paladins are awful at pvp and With your mod 16 plans will probably be even worse.
A lot of your scaling issues can probably be handles by having gear give more stats like str wis int etc instead of these extra stats like def armor pen etc. By adding more function to stats like str for instance. Str boost damage, block deflect. Dex boost dodge, accuracy crit resistance and crit etc.
On another game I built a tank with high strength to mitigate physical damage and high wisdom to be resistant to elemental damage I did not hp stack like other tanks. It was more rewarding to be able to go outside the box and do things my way and be a better tank than the rest of the player base. You say your trying to make it so that there is less cookie cutter builds well I think your failing at this 100%.
When wow came out and we had no control of stats and stats really did not have a big impact on game play. I was disappointed that I could not flesh out my characters to my play style. I like that fact that you have to use some brains to design a good character and those that don't think it through will gimp themselves. Hopefully with enough options you won't have cookie cutter builds but to me currently not enough options in feat choices on mod 16.
I was hoping that the addition of the threat meter you were going in the direction mentioned above but it seems like all of this change is just for convenience of scaling for the programmers. Why does it matter who does more dps. The score board just clouds things for you. The main point is did you do your job well in the role that you play? I bet if you took the current score board and combined all the scores into a final analysis of who provided the most benefit to the team tanks will always fall to the bottom. Even though their role and the healers are the keystone that holds the team together. You can say well you took the most damage but that metric is false. I've seen dps suck so bad that they take more damage than the tank, they can't stay out of the red.
The direction your taking could lead to ending solo play. If a tank can't stay alive without healers, if dps die to mobs without a tank etc, then players will have to form parties to level. This is how older MMO's used to work. I like the fact that you could do a lot of content solo, but if I'm going to need a full party to play its going to be boring, LFG to do quest is going to kill this game. I understand what your doing but there is a reason that this game and many other games have moved away from this formula. Don't go retro and think you can do it better, MMOs have evolved the way they are because it's what works. Just as free to play has taken over most MMO's and become pay to win. What killed WOW for me was the complete rework of the class every expansion and having to throw away all my hard earned gear for green gear that was better than my end game gear. I would have been content with the level cap raise and a few new abilities to use. Familiarity with some new choices will always be more comfortable than a complete overhaul.
Remember if you kill this game who's going to be in the bread line?
Sorry folks but if Im gonna get a broken class with M16 release anyway, Id rather have a broken op class than a broken nerfed to the ground class. If the devs are unable to balance now /seems they are/ and release date is approaching, leave the class mess as it is, at least they are playable. Focus on fixing enchantments, artifacts, pets and scaling. Because those are so broken some of them are game breaking. Castle Never bridge demons for example still hit players for 200 000 - 300 000 on every attack and that dungeon is listed at 10 000 IL if i recall.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
What about for unexpected difficulty and deaths?
Pretty sure its the feedback thread for Paladins. So that's what I'm here discussing.
We already know that the devs are aware of the problems with CN and similar, the fact they were not fixed this week doesn't mean they are not trying to fix them.
I'm equally confident that the devs have looked at the data I shared along with the rest of the data that was shared in the same post. (In which the CW in question wasn't always so clearly ahead of the other DPS.)
I want the Paladin to work, not be broken and need to be fixed endlessly in a series of nerfs and corrections and nerfs over the next 2 modules or more. (I have had SW for that experience enough already.)
Part of that is waiting for Asterdahl to deliver the changes he has promised to the passives and feats.
Part of that is identifying sources of problems for the class that exist outside passives and feats.
If the class is performing "as expected" based on the existence of 1 power, that is a problem (been through that with OP already as well). We want the class to perform well with as many power combinations being viable as possible. That's not going to happen when every problem in the game can be solved by smiting it.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
If there is an issue better it get fixed properly, and not hidden because some want to rely on broken 'features' for a class to semi work. Different dev, different thread.
Xyrella was also playing on a sub-optimal notebook as far as I know, if you want to have a more representative dps-number then you should look at Hector from another run.
And to be precise, if the barb in this run had been tank-specced, then I would have performed worse on my paladin.
I need to get hit in order to deal damage, another tank would take at least some dmg away from me. Yes, the dps of a tank built paladin against a dummy is not representative at all because of many reasons, we only added it to have a complete dummy-test. We also stated that it is not represantative.
Regarding Smite: It is not that simple, even if you scrap Smite entirely from the log, paladin would still deal more enc-dps than tank-barb or tank-fighter in these particular logs.
Also, Smite is not the real the issue, it's Dvinity powers in general, for aoe I was using Bane very effectively.
You can download the logs for all runs as zip-file if you want to have a closer look.
You have to take into account, that these are only 4 runs, a statistically insignificant number, however the runs indicate that tank paladin is, compared to tank-barb and tank-fighter, overperforming.
It also looks like paladin is doing more dmg than dps-fighter, actually I ran this dungeon a lot with dps-fighters and I was roughly doing the same dps/dmg as them every time.
it always takes a bit to keep up to date with the evolution of this thread, but it's always nice to see a productive discussion regarding the goal of having a viable class to play once mod 16 hits live.
I find myself agreeing with the evident focus that Justicars put on the use of Smite, but it seems to me that addressing the magnitude of the power is the wrong way to balance things out. First and foremost, there will never be a perfect balance among the power used by any class, so we'll always see charts showing one power getting the biggest slice of the pie, with the others following behind. This is not bad per se and it's not the main point of concern for the viability of a class, even if it means that a specific power will be preferred when in need of an higher DPS output.
The most dear elements to a specific class players are the viability of their character in the different aspects of the game, being it solo play or grouped content, and a specific identity for their class. Noone feels good saying "I main a tank" as saying "my main is a Fighter", because uniqueness is what makes the choice to play a specific class relevant.
What I find lacking in the actual Paladin's state of developement are viable alternatives to the use of Divinity. This lead to invest all the available Divinity on a specific power, being it situationally Smite or Templar's Wrath. A valid Tab mechanic for the class would allow Paladins to invest this resource in another way other than in their encounters, limiting automatically the weight of their DPS percentage.
I appreciate the idea of a Divinity draining tab mechanic as it is for Divine Pallisade at the moment, but I can't still find reasons to use it either in solo content or in groups. In its place, a valid alternative would be something on these baselines:
- Charging: holding tab charges the mechanic at the cost of 100 divinity per second, as per the updated Divine Pallisade.
- Incremental effect and duration: every second passed charging the mechanic would increase its bonus by a fixed amount. With the removal of recovery and the need to use Divinity for encounters, a duration of 2s per tick would make it worthwile.
- Effectiveness: investing Divinity in the class mechanic should make it worthwile over keeping it just to fuel encounters. If the effect would be deemed too insignificant, Justicar players would keep using divinity uniquely for encounters.
- (optional) Full Charge Reward: fueling the mechanic for 10 full seconds should be truly rewarding. Being target of CCs and damaging hits without using the shield for all this time is a noticeable challenge and it should seen as a success in personal skill to reach it in combat situations.
- (optional) Party effect: the mechanic would affect friendly characters/companions/allies in the same range of the Paladin's Aura. Party buffing is a matter of class balance; if this would make the Paladin preferable over the other two tank classes, it would better be avoided.
The effect could really be any thinkable of: bonus to defence, bonus to damage, bonus to attack speed, CD lowering, CC resistance/immunity, increase of threat bonus etc. Some are an echo of the old Divine Call+Justice capstone feat, some could be new to the Paladin. I don't mind proposing any personal preference; it's just a matter of granting the Justicar a real class mechanic that could give it uniqueness and a viable alternative in Divinity consumption, automatically limiting encounter spam as the only way to be relevant in solo or grouped content.
That Justicar do more damage then Vanguard barbie tank is something I have a hard time seeing not being the case as Justicar is the only dps Pal has. However it is not without a problem due to tanks overall need to be equal in being wanted in groups I think utitility is the fix for this however it is done, leaving Justice at same dps as other tanks that has access to dps path is equally wrong.
Dreadnought need a damage boost or barbie dps toned down these 2 path should be exactly the same in damage output.
Best
Smite matters not, you are focusing on the wrong things. We have a tank class practically Featless and without Passives. I can literally play with nearly the same efficiency without having picked any Feats! Is that OK? Is that on the charts?
Anyway, the devs will do whatever they think they should do, we're on page 23 and Tab is still bad despite all the feedback. M16 will launch with op classes and nerfed classes as usual. If the Justicar happens to be on nerfed side at least I have a Sentinel to fall back to.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
House Miliskeera in exile (NW)
Sereska Miliskeera, Lvl 70 OP - Devotion (Just.)/Protection (Just.)
Shizlee Miliskeera, Lvl 70 DC - Divine Oracle (Right.)/Anoited Champion (Faith.)
Finithey Miliskeera, Lvl 70 HR - Stormwarden (Combat)/Pathfinder (Trapper)
Maya Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 CW - Spellstorm
Irae Sik-Miliskeera, Lvl 70 TR - Master Inflitrator
Member - Houseclan t'Charvon (STO)
Shiarrael e'Tal'Aura t'Charvon, LvL 60, Rom Sci
S'aana ir'Virinat t'Charvon, Lvl 60, Rom Eng
T'Lyra, LvL 60, Fed, Vul Sci
Ta'el, Lvl 60, Rom Tac
Also @asterdahl I gotta say thank you, Justicars gain Divinity via blocking, enemies under cc can not attack the tank so no blocking = no Divinity. Essentially even if you give Justicars the best cc in the game we wont use it cause its counterproductive to our new class mechanic... Sarcasm off. Burning light, the single best pve encounter power of the live Paladin is as good as deleted. Do you really think your present dev team has the capacity to make changes of this caliber to the core game ? I dont, I dont trust you guys. You seem uncertain of what you're doing. If you manage to pull off a good m16 release with actually balanced classes Id be amazed as hell and I'll apologize publicly.
PS: Also do keep in mind both the Barbi tank and the Fighter tank can keep attacking while blocking. The Sentinel actually being capable of using his full encounter arsenal while Unstoppable auto blocks all incoming attacks, put an Eclipse in his armor and behold. Out of the 3 tanks, Justicar is the only one depending on blocking not only for damage negation but for main resource recovery! Dont compare us more than needed, we are in fact different.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.
So I focussed on other things this patch, specifically the fact that I went from slow but reliable in clearing content to waltzing through it without a care mostly.
My feedback remains:
I think 40% more HP is bad for game balance (the 1 million HP tank is inevitable), instead the Shield’s “hp” should be increased and if necessary the rate of stamina loss adjusted.
Now that we only have a 10% debuff, Smite (1200 magnitude) over performs. Yes I can have multiple 1k Magnitude powers slotted on a Sentinel, they all have 10s plus cool down, you can cast Smite faster than that, especially if you have something to accelerate Divinity recovery.
Divinity recovery is bad. Really bad once you have a go with a DC and see how smoothly they can recover Divinity it’s even more painful to struggle with our Divinity (similarly for the Warlock heal spec).
Divine Pallisade is horrible. It’s basically a tank only effect that pretends to be a party effect that isn’t useable because it costs 2 critical resources for a marginal effect. Extensive suggestions made.
Aggro management seems to be fine, but problems exist with Vow of Enmity’s cool down. Given the power’s small damage it can be cast faster and that would smooth out aggro management.
I haven’t had a chance to test our heals in party content so have no comment.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
Binding, absolution, smite should as it is now be the best combo but that leaves out the threat building completely beside pure dps.
As long as you get hit binding is imho a much better choise then relentless(if the party isent hopeless forcing you to charge to stay ahead). I would even agree to lower Smite for the Justicar(not Oathkeeper) if you would add a bit of more damage when hit on binding oath and threat on all reflective damage(wtith built in feats and class feats for it).
As mentioned above we funcion a bit different from the other tanks and working on this "taking damage doing damage with increased threat" track I can see a working solution commming into play.
Best
Healing as Oathkeeper I havent tried in grp content
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, Life is but a dream.